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Modern super container ships can hold 24,000 containers each of which is 20ft long. If you were to line these up end to end it would be 96 miles long. The Pan
by pests 3y ago
Modern super container ships can hold 24,000 containers each of which is 20ft long.
If you were to line these up end to end it would be 96 miles long.
The Panama Canal is only 50 miles long.
You could do it but the entire length of the track would be completely full of containers twice over.
I somehow feel it would not be cost effective in the long run.
- oh_sigh 3y agoOP is talking about loading the entire boat onto rails, not the containers themselves.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hef19898 3y agoContainer on rails is a viable alternative for goods shipped from and to China. Used pretty extensively, but more expensive than sea freight (which is basically unbeatable cost wise).
- DiggyJohnson 3y agoFWIW, your numbers are off by a factor of two: Panamax ships carry up to 5,000 TEUs; Neo-Panamax, introduced after the canal's expansion, 14,000. Beyond that, I think OP was referring to a hypothetical piece of infrastructure that would dwarf anything we've ever built on this planet: drydocking the entire loaded ship and moving it across Panama on a massive rail system capable of moving entire ships across the land.
- pests 3y agoDuh, I totally forgot about ships being built for certain canal sizes and just went with the maximum I can find.